This invention relates generally to teaching aids, and particularly to aids in teaching word pronunciation.
Learning to read, to write, to comprehend and to pronounce the words of a written language is one of the most difficult yet necessary of human tasks. The learning of pronunciation is particularly difficult in view of the fact that the sound of letters change and assume several variations when incorporated into the bodies of different words. In some cases such variations in pronunciation are orderly and follow rules but in other cases they vary illogically and have to be learned by rote memory.
Heretofore, dictionaries have been provided with pronunciation keys as a guide to pronunciation. These keys include various symbols such as accent marks, syllable separations, symbols for silent consonants and so forth. Keyed charts have also been devised as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,211 for teaching word pronunciation. Color codes have also been developed as exemplified by those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 683,267, 1,732,980 and 3,715,812.
A problem associated with each of these prior art approaches and techniques has been the fact that the student must learn the meaning of the symbols and various color codes themselves in addition to the principal task at hand of learning the word pronunciations in which such symbols and codes are employed. This has tended to lessen the effectiveness of such prior art approaches.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide improved means of teaching word pronunciation.
More specifically, it is an object of the invention to provide a set of alphabetical letters which themselves provide a clue to pronunciation of the words which they form.
Another object of the invention is to provide a set of alphabetical letters whose structure, size or shape provide a clue to word pronunciation based on common human experience unassociated with language in written form itself.